Baron Humboldt on Hot Springs. 283 



afterwards they made their appearance again, under the dread- 

 ful shocks of an earthquake, as hot springs. In 1803, I found 

 their temperature 65°8 C. 



The springs of Greece still flow apparently in the same 

 places as they did in the times of Hellenic antiquity. The 

 spring of Erasinos, two leagues south, of Argos, in the decli- 

 vity of Chaon, is even mentioned by Herodotus. At Delphi, 

 the Cassotis (the so-called "Wells of St Nicholas) still rises 

 to the south of the Lesche, and flows under the Temple of 

 Apollo ; the Castalia, too, at the foot of Phaedriadae, and the 

 Pirene at Acrocorinth, are there, as well as the hot baths of 

 JEdepsos in Cubasa, in which Sulla bathed at the time of 

 the Mithridatic war. I gladly adduce these particulars, be- 

 cause they forcibly remind us how, in a country exposed to 

 earthquakes so frequent and so violent, the interior of our 

 planet has been able to preserve its spring canals unaltered for 

 2000 years at least. The Fontaine Jaillissante of Lillers, in 

 the department of the Pas de Calais, was bored in the year 

 1126, and ever since then has the water flowed uninterrujDtedly 

 to the same height, and in the same quantity. The excellent 

 geographer of the Caramanian coasts. Captain Beaufort, more- 

 over, observed the same flame, fed by a stream of inflammable 

 gas, Avhich floAvs out in the district of Phaselis, which Pliny 

 describes as the flame of Chimsera in Lycia. 



The observations made by Arago in 1821, that the deeper 

 Artesian wells are the warmer, was the first means of throw- 

 ing a great light vipon the origin of thermal springs, and 

 led to the discovery of the law of the increase of the temper- 

 ature of the earth according to the depth. It is remarkable, 

 and only noticed in very recent times, that St Patricius pro- 

 bably Bishop of Pertusa, was led to a very correct view of 

 the phenomenon which presented itself in the appearance of 

 hot springs near Carthage, at the end of the third century. 

 When questioned as to the cause of the boiling-hot water 

 ■which poured out from the earth, he answered : — " Fire is 

 nourished in the clouds, and in the interior of the earth, as 

 Etna, and another mountain in the neighbourhood of Naples, 

 inform you. The subterranean waters rise as through syphons ; 

 and the cause of the heat of hot springs is this : the waters 



